The Audacious Roundup
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our October selection is We’re Alone by Edwidge Danticat, and she will join us on October 30th at the usual time. Registration is open! And you can see our conversation with Regina Porter, on YouTube when I get back from vacation because I forgot to upload it before we left. (Hello from Spain!)
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
I was on vacation! I still am for one more day!
PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL NEWS
I was interviewed by the folks at Cup of Jo’s Big Salad. New level, UNLOCKED.
Join me at the Circa Queer Histories festival in Los Angeles. I will be part of the closing plenary, “The Future of Queer History: LGBTQ+ Writers on the Election,” on Sunday, October 27, 2024, 7-8:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre. I will be joining Eric Cervini, Justin Torres, Tre’vell Anderson and George M. Johnson in conversation.
Debbie Millman has a new book, Love Letter to a Garden, and it will be published on April 15th, 2025. Also included in the book are 10 recipes by me—a mini cookbook if you will. Pre-orders are open!
Megan Pillow and I wrote a book called Do the Work. The Tenth Anniversary edition of Bad Feminist is available. The Portable Feminist Reader is coming out on February 18th, 2025. Pre-orders are now open and it is always a huge help when you pre-order.
Details about our new writing contest and the winner and runners-up of the inaugural contest are up!
READING MATERIAL
Because it bears repeating, what doctors and nurses saw, firsthand, in Gaza. Netanyahu, completely unchecked by world leaders, is starving the people in Gaza, literally. LITERALLY. As in, he is preventing food from entering Gaza. The IDF is bombing hospitals and tent camps and BURNING PEOPLE ALIVE. The place has been turned into rubble. I fully acknowledge that my expertise is in American affairs and that there is a long history between Israel and Palestine but you do not need to be an expert to recognize atrocity. You just don’t. October 7th was an atrocity, hostages still being held is an atrocity, and the more than year-long campaign Israel has waged against Gaza and then the West Bank and now Lebanon, it’s all an atrocity. All of these things are true. There is retaliation, and then there is revenge, and this is whatever the fuck is beyond revenge. It’s horribly wrong. There are no words to adequately convey how horrific this is. Genocide is certainly a start but it isn’t enough. When we say never again, we have to really mean never again and that means never again will we be the victims or perpetrators of a genocide.
Scholar Rashid Khalidi is retiring from Columbia.
Merve Emre and Sally Rooney have a conversation. And here’s a conversation with J.Lo, for a different vibe.
Congratulations to Han Kang, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature. She also declined to celebrate or have a press conference while people, around the world, are still dying in wars. A real one.
Congratulations, also, to Victoria Chang, who won the Forward poetry prize.
TNC hearing an excerpt of a racist review of his new book The Message will definitely be a meme for the next while.
A profile of Lina Khan, the chair of the FTC.
Trump, who inexplicably has a chance to still win his second term as president, continues to show severe mental decline. Also he is still a Nazi, too, and about 50% of Americans are just fine with that. I don’t understand how this is possible but here we are. While he was president, during the early days of COVID, he sent COVID tests to his bestie Putin. Also, he has been calling up his bestie since he left office. His shitty bibles are made in China. He also has the full support of some really terrible people who are terrible.
As the far right makes gains in the U.S., they are also making gains and influencing the far right in Ireland.
The January 6th insurgents serving prison time, seem to be doing just fine.
Speaking of crime, TD Bank has been doing some money laundering for drug cartels.
A Pew Research report shows that white women favor Trump by FIVE POINTS. What the ever loving fuck are y’all doing?
Vice-president Harris is healthy, in case you were wondering. She is also on the cover of Vogue this month. She has been endorsed by many publications including The New Yorker.
As Hurricane Milton loomed over Florida, a man called Lieutenant Dan decided to ride the storm out on his little boat. Turns out, he’s a real peach of a fellow. Caroline Calloway (still around???) also decided to ride out the storm. And as natural disaster becomes the new normal in Florida, homeowners are struggling to sell their uninsurable properties.
And no, you cannot fight a hurricane with a nuclear weapon.
Meanwhile, in Asheville and other parts of Western Carolina, residents are grappling with the aftermath of Helene.
Speaking of global warming, species decline is accelerating.
Sometimes, though, nature fights back.
Kate McKinnon is living her best life.
Uber and Lyft are committing flagrant wage theft. Among other crimes, let’s be real.
Tressie McMillan Cottom shares her observations about Diddy having profiled him for Vanity Fair, and in light of the many, many legal troubles he is facing for being a sexual predator.
Indeed, chicken tenders are delicious.
A “By the Book” with Jami Attenberg.
How the WNBA became so awesome.
Noor Alfallah has found another old man to hang out with. Queen shit.
RIP Cissy Houston. RIP Bill Cobbs. I always loved seeing him on screen.
A haunting story about two teenagers an Fentanyl.
There’s trouble in Ye-ville. And Kanye has been accused of rape and other terrible things by his ex-assistant.
Dr. Dre is also facing MORE allegations of violent behavior.
How Notre Dame has been rebuilt after the fire that nearly destroyed it.
The arts are, often, funded by the wealthy. How can the creative class sustain itself when so much is contingent on the whims of the wealthy? It’s not sustainable! It never has been. And yet.
Did you know that the papers of Hannah Arendt, a Libra, are in the Library of Congress?
How a couple pivoted when their daycare closed.
Harrison Ford, still an interesting interview even though he has been interviewed, probably, thousands of times.
This story about the last days of Sara Sharif, likely murdered by her father and maybe other family members, is just so haunting.
The 50 most influential influencers. Okie dokie!
In Germany, a performance of an explicit opera had some… consequences. And now I really want to see this opera!
The Chippendales are unionizing!
The Europa Clipper which, true story, features some art Debbie Millman made, is on its way to one of Jupiter’s moons. This is like Interstellar: Part 1.
A guy but some trophies at Goodwill and then tried to track down their owner.
This is adorable.
The memory I have of Diddy is Easter 2020 when lockdown Pandemic started, he shared this faux outrage video of his mostly grown daughters and tried to slut shame Lizzo about this Lizzo video. And his teenage children looked like they were completely emotionally robotic, shut down, dissociative. And Diddy ranted about what a fat piece of shit Lizzo was and he didn’t want his children’s precious ears offended by her filth. It was such a bizarre act. And the kids looked like they had barely ever met him and were terrified of him and had never been allowed to speak freely in their lives.
On the way to one of Jupiter’s moons! Human imagining is so fascinating and inspiring.